Monday, February 29, 2016

Book Tour: Courting Cassandry

Is it too late for second chances when the girl you loved in your youth comes back into your life?

Gerolt de Warenne became guardian to a child-heiress named Cassandry when he was only nineteen-years old. As he watched her grow into a lovely young woman, he found himself falling in love with her, but Cassandry viewed him as an older brother. So, burying his feelings, he gave permission for her to marry another.

Twenty-four years later Gerolt and Cassandry meet again. With the loss of their respective spouses, Gerolt hopes to finally court Cassandry, but she desires to remain a widow. Instead, they agree to a betrothal of their children.

Matters become complicated as their friendship begins to evolve into the romance Gerolt has always wanted. But by the law of the medieval Church, Cassandry and Gerolt can’t marry if their children do. Can they find a way to be together? Or must they sacrifice their future for the love of their children?

"Courting Cassandry" is a “Hearts in Autumn” romance, medieval romances revolving around heroes and heroines “in the autumn of their years.” Because love isn’t only for the young!

Hearts in Autumn is the series subtitle for my medieval romances that focus on couples in their 40s and 50s. While I still love writing about young love and will continue to do so, my “autumn” couples have a unique vantage point that their younger counterpoints do not. These are characters who have already lived rich lives, who have experienced depths of heartache and joy that my younger characters only stand on the threshold of. That gives my autumn couples layers of complexity that I can’t quite reach with younger characters. And I am finding that aspect exceptionally enjoyable!

For example, in Courting Cassandry, the hero and heroine have each already lived through a former marriage. What were these marriages like? How did they shape the hero and heroine and shift and change them before they meet again at the beginning of the book? Furthermore, these prior marriages produced children, whose futures lie heavily on the hearts of their surviving parents. Heavily—but also, frequently exasperatingly, for the children are teens, and however much medieval society sought to mold teenagers into early adults, hormones are hormones and medieval teenagers surely found some way to vent them, just as teenagers do today. There are enough accounts of wild and rowdy apprentices in medieval cities, not to mention accounts of conflicts between noble fathers and sons, to assure us adolescence was likely as challenging at least for some of these youth in medieval times as it is in the modern age.

I found this approach refreshing to my writing process, telling the story not through the eyes of two young lovers, but through the eyes of their parents—who just happen to fall in love with one another along the way.

Some of my autumn romances are about finding first love late in life (like the first title in this series, Loving Lucianna). Some will be about finding love the second time around. And some, like Courting Cassandry, will be about second chances. I hope you will enjoy these characters and stories as much as I have enjoyed writing them. Because love isn’t only for the young!

The First Book in the Series

Loving Lucianna

(Hearts in Autumn #1)

by Joyce DiPastena

Adult Historical Romance

Paperback & ebook, 220 pages

October 11th 2014

Sir Balduin de Soler gave up long ago on love. He never had the means to support a wife until an unexpected advancement in his fifties allows him to reassess his future just as the lovely Lucianna enters his life.

Lucianna Fabio harbors a secret, painful memory from her past that has kept her unwed, as well. Now in her forties, she thought herself too old to marry until she meets Sir Balduin. Now suddenly their lonely autumn lives feel very much like spring again . . . until Lucianna’s brother appears without warning and threatens to revive the secret that will destroy Lucianna’s second chance at love.

"Loving Lucianna" is the first in Joyce DiPastena’s new "Hearts in Autumn" romance series, medieval romances revolving around heroes and heroines “in the autumn of their years.” Because you’re never too old to fall in love!

Joyce DiPastena dreamed of green medieval forests while growing up in the dusty copper mining town of Kearny, Arizona. She filled her medieval hunger by reading the books of Thomas B. Costain (where she fell in love with King Henry II of England), and later by attending the University of Arizona where she graduated with a degree in history, specializing in the Middle Ages. The university was also where she completed her first full-length novel…set, of course, in medieval England. Later, her fascination with Henry II led her to expand her research horizons to the far reaches of his “Angevin Empire” in France, which became the setting of her first published novel, Loyalty’s Web (a 2007 Whitney Award Finalist).

When she’s not writing, Joyce loves to read, play the piano, and spend time with her sister and friends. A highlight of her year is attending the annual Arizona Renaissance Festival .

Joyce is a multi-published, multi-award winning author who specializes in sweet medieval romances heavily spiced with mystery and adventure. She lives with her two cats, Clio and Glinka Rimsky-Korsokov, in Mesa, Arizona.